


at my worst i worry you'll realize you deserve better (at my best i worry i will)

by novayee



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Drinking, Falling In Love, Fluff, M/M, Out of order storytelling, So many kisses, there was supposed to be more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 17:32:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15912978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novayee/pseuds/novayee
Summary: "Love is awful," Logan had said to him drunk.And Virgil deals.And then—"Oh darling," Roman grinned wide with all teeth. "You have no idea."





	at my worst i worry you'll realize you deserve better (at my best i worry i will)

**Author's Note:**

> this whole thing is very fluffy 
> 
> warnings:  
> -drinking  
> -a whole lot of loving

“Love is an awful thing,” Logan had said to him drunk, getting tripped over by short words and his own tongue slurring them unilaterally; a stark contrast to his normal clean-cut biting sort of speech. “An awful, awful thing.”

It should have been concerning. It  _ would  _ have been concerning , if Virgil wasn’t just as lush—idle and hunched over with a claw visa grip on the coffee table trying to keep himself upright.

They were nineteen and too poignant with leavings of betrayal stabbing at his gut and hurting hurting too much to deal with by leaving sober. A bitter melancholy and a celebratory exultant raced in the blood rushing to his head leaving him uselessly undone and dizzy. The alcohol cloy in their muddled thoughts. Nauseating, jaded.

Virgil lurched, shaky.

The memories are still there—a fresh cut, a last scar left to relive his presence again and again  _and_   _again_ —but blurred and shaded now. A fog washes over them and it mostly comes in hot, violent lashes of feelings to strong.

His hand lolled—almost numb and gone, weighing with a heavy cement that fills his blood and then his lungs—grabbing for another swig, grasping it by the neck of the bottle. Some of it spilled down his chin. catching on his shirt and pants, and there’s something wet on his cheeks.

The memories are an awful sort of restaurant and he just can’t get rid of. Some soft and gentle, and the others angry and painful. They’re a noose that threatens to pull. Then snap. Quiet and nice, and chafed and scorned. His fingers clumsily ran along the line of his neck.

_ Don’t let yourself get hurt by it again _ , Logan tells him as if it were simple as that (as if he had a  _ choice _ ), voice fading and drowned. He says nothing on the tears. His snores come almost quiet.  

And Virgil deals.  

**_________**

 

Virgil had learned how to keep his chin up and head down even before  _ he  _ left.

(He knew how to deal.)

So he buckled down and bared it through gritting teeth biting down the bile and pain, slowing wearing at him and new defenses.

**_________**

 

With Roman all and every rule and bit of caution he had prepared for himself is thrown aside, ripped and torn to their bare bones and uncertainty without a flying fuck.

It’s all fast paced with pictures taken of the view for memories but then slow walks muddled with the pour of words that just keep coming. He entered laughing, all settled and smiling as if he already belong, taking a nook of Virgil’s space and forcing it to be made his own. He was bright and buoyant, bouncing himself around the whole of the party (which had alcohol and a lot of drunk college students; and honestly going was such a  _ dumb idea thanks so much for nothing Logan _ ). Then he found Virgil; quiet, buzzed, and still only on his first drink.

“So handsome, do you have a name?” He asks, saddling up besides catching Virgil sputtering and flushed and left dumb by the sheer confidence of the silly smile he wore. “Or can I just call you mine?”

And Virgil is left gaping, his head spinning, mind dizzy, taken and being whirling in circles with no mercy because  _ who in their right mind cares about me _ ,  _ why would they care about me _ ?— unable to reply with anything but, “What kind of bullshit pick-up was that?”

He stares surprised and blinks —t hen again, and finally draws back, laughing a bit too loud so it rings in Virgil’s head. He shrugs simply. “Well they all can’t be winners. So do I get that name or not?”

“Depends.” Virgil sips from his glass casually, hiding his burning face and blown-out eyes behind the wide rim. “What do I get in exchange?”

“The chance to hang out with moi. Not everyone is so lucky.” And Virgil notices the stares of others dark and penurious, deep with green envy hot on his back.

_ Fuck _ , he’s not drunk enough for a pretty boy with the caught prizes of the eyes of others.

Virgil grins, a strike something wicked bright across his face. “Honestly I would just rather another beer as payment for my name.”

He’s laughing now (a sound Virgil wanted to bottle; so he could get drunk off the giddy joy of it, high from the lightness of it) and offers his hand. Virgil takes it with a certain caution. “I’m Roman,” he says and that question of ‘who would ever care about me’ is answered.

Apparently Roman, with wide eyes partially glossy and the curved line of his lip turning the smile soft. He turns to the bartender. “Two of what he’s having for the both of us please.”

The beer Virgil had ordered tasted like shit really—it was the cheapest the sold, just a sort of miserable distraction from his miserable time here—and he was never one to take from a stranger; but still finishes his first glass and for once indulges himself.

“It’s Virgil,” he finally tells as payment after he realizes that his second is already a quarter downed. “My name, it’s Virgil.”

“Virgil,” Roman tastes it on his tongue. “Well it’s a pleasure to meet you, Virgil.”

Virgil finds that his own honest smile—hesitant as it is—spreads wide and sparkling. It’s nice, he thinks. “It’s really not, but okay.”

They talk after that. Virgil learns that Roman is studying in art and theater, that he had won his 1st grade talent show by singing Hakuna Matata and then sabotaged Christine Anderson’s poem, and his family is  _ big _ .

(“There’s mamá, tiá, auntie, Rosa, Daniel, Valerie, Tegan, and Julie,” he says. “I’m the fourth, so that’s two behind Rosa who’s one up from Valerie, but she’s younger than Julie which has Daniel than Tegan following behind. Tegan’s the baby, even though she’s already in 6th grade.” Virgil is staring—which is rude, he knows, but  _ still _ —with his jaw heavy and gaping.)

Roman in turns learns a lot about Virgil; like that he spends more time boring into the depths of his wall listening to My Chemical Romance (to which Roman whoops, crying that he totally called it) than actually studying, Logan is his best friend albeit annoying when it comes to his grades, and he has a favorite color and it’s amaranthine.

By that time he’s already on his third glass, Roman’s is as pleasant as it was when given to him.

“Gorgeous shade. So very oddly specific,” Roman comments slowly on the shared fun fact.

Virgil grins something wicked. “You have no idea what color it is.”

“Not even in the slightest.”

Virgil leans into his own laughter, trying not to choke and die on spit and beer. “Purple,” he gives him. “It’s basically purple. Kinda has a splurge of red. Maroon. More like maroon.”

“I totally knew that.”

“You just admitted that you really didn’t.” Virgil shivers.

“Yeah, but like I was totally joking you see,” Roman explains, overcompensating a little too  _ much _ , while shrugging off the ruby sleeves of his bomber jacket. “I knew exactly what color you were talking about the whole time. I, actually believe it or not, love amantine too.” He moves to hang it up on Virgil’s shoulders.

“Amaranthine.”

“That’s what I said.”

“So do you have a favorite color?” Virgil asks, not really caring so much so as he got more drunk and come to that Roman had a very lovely voice. “Or are you one of those people who can’t ever decide?”

“I have a favorite color!” He blurts. Then quieter, “it’s rainbow.”

“Called it,” he bites out around the rim of his glass.

Roman rolls his eyes, sliding his own a little closer but doesn’t move to drink any. “Of course you did. And rainbow is a perfectly valid favorite color.”

“Sure it is,” Virgil snorts. “So hey, you ever going to actually drink that by the way? Or are you going to just waste it?”

“I uh.” He shifts, uncomfortable. “I actually don’t really like beers. Margaritas are more my thing.”

“Then why did you order it?”

“Well I was expecting your tastes to be so bad.”

“What were you expecting? You could have asked for something different, you didn’t need to use that line.” Virgil pauses. “You just wanted to use that one line, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Roman flushes, bright red and absolutely obvious—and it’s awful and mean that Virgil finds it endearing apart from the cocky glint he wore earlier. “I hear it said all the time in movies, and really if I’m going to continue to be honest here, I thought you were going to brush me off from the start so I was just like, ‘to hell with it I guess’.”

This time he does choke while cackling horribly. Roman stares on unamused, Virgil can see him from beneath his bangs and bowed head, but says nothing while Virgil continues to draw attention of patrons lounging around nearby at something not even really that funny.

“Wow,” he says whens he finished. “You’re kinda a disaster.”

“Not like you can really talk there, Twenty One Problems,” he says pointedly. And it’s not like Virgil can really argue, which he finds himself even more upset at than the once stranger being infuriatingly cute with a blush that hasn’t faded in the wrapping wintriness of the bar. How dare he know Virgil better than Virgil really knows himself. But Roman, head tilted and curious, pushes on. “I mean you were here sitting alone at a party,” he checks over a shoulder, “that’s pretty much gone, drinking what is the cheapest and most  _ awful tasting beer ever _ .  _ Seriously how are you not disgusted _ ?”  

There’s a joke in there, to lighten the heavy mood that presses against his chest, and Virgil finds himself latching to it. Because, screw caution, he’s already had three beers with the boy who has a pretty face and he’s grown attached. Intrigued at the least.

“Alright,” he agrees, standing up. He only stumbles a little, and knowingly ignores the steady arm of Roman’s on his. “If the beers so bad how about we leave? Besides as you said, party’s over.”

Roman looks him over, hesitant but then he’s glowing again with that grin just as he was the start of the night. ”Alright. I can drive you home if you want.”

Virgil blinks. “Uh, yeah thanks. That’d be great, cause I left my phone in my dorm, and so can’t call anyway. So, uh, thanks,” he fumbles through the thanks, letting Roman keep his firm grip that runs electricity down his skin, a boils his blood hot. Without their chatter the bar is more quiet and somber now with the party over and all that. Moving through it feels like pushing past water, thick and stifled. And he’s tired, Virgil realizes when the cold air—more brittle and ice than the bar inside—washes over him in a glazed cloud of frigidness.

He stops in the midst of cars and cars and more cars as he follows Roman’s proud sweep of an arm.

“For a guy who went to serenade his school talent show with Hakuna Matata I didn’t think you’d have…” Virgil motions uncertain around the parking spot where the red shine of the bike basks in the post lamps hanging overhead the parking lot, some paint chipped with the wear of growing age but kept nice and well washed for prosperity. It stalks silently, blinking back into life by the headlights and key. An absolute death machine. “That.”

“I know, isn’t it pretty cool?”

“In other words.”

Roman throws one leg over straddling the leather seat and holds out an open hand. “Do you trust me?”

“Absolutely not,” Virgil says, kneejerk. “Especially if you’re going to be quoting Aladdin the whole time.”

“I will be quoting Aladdin until the day I die,” insists Roman, reaching further. “So I’ll ask again. Do you trust me?”

“I am not drunk enough for this,” Virgil murmurs, gripping tighter than necessary to keep both of them still while he settles himself of the seat of it. Roman twists then releases the throttled, revving up the motor barking loudly. Virgil’s heart clenches.

“If I die then I hope you die first and in worst pain.”

Roman laughs too bemused by the threat to be anything else but excited.

And then—then, suddenly, they’re off; thrown onto the road with a slight jump of the bike’s wheels skidding again cement and dirt racing light and sound on the empty roadside. The helmet blocks most sounds but doesn’t help with how blood roars in Virgil’s ears, stricken fear grasping hold on his limbs turning them stiff and rigid around the lower of Roman’s torso.

“You asshole!” He yells—tries to yell, tried to scream, but it’s been pulled from by the wind, whipped from his tongue and taken back to his lips.

He’s sure Roman’s laughing now too, he thinks. The compressed and well kept way his shoulders tremble to shake, head held up higher pointing his nose and his eyes forward on the road ahead, how his stomach sucks in.

Virgil presses himself closer. Taken and gone, never coming back. Not completely enchanted yet, but almost there and that’s close enough to be terrifying but the adrenaline and thrill of when Roman slides from lane to lane shakes that fear for the moment.

It’s still shaken, even when Roman’s left. Taken and gone. Virgil curses himself for forgetting his phone, for forgetting to ask for a number and then berates himself on his walk back to his room on wanting to get a number. He tugs on the sleeves of his jacket trying to fumble for a key before slotting in the open socket that joints to the door handle. He decides on throwing himself onto his bed, blaming the alcohol on non-existent problems circling around some useless pretty boy’s smile and laugh.

It’s too late into the night and newly accustomed to the heavyweight left warm on his shoulders, Virgil realizes he never gave back the jacket.

**_________**

 

_ Love is awful _ , Logan had told him and Virgil had believed him. He still did, the parts of him that wallowed in the pity and drowned in the throb of wounds healed over a pigmented white.

But Roman is a fire, wild and all devouring; unable to stop from taking,  _ taking _ ,  _ taking _ , and those around unable to stop giving,  _ giving _ ,  _ giving _ . Because his warmth is addicting, it’s wonderful and people hover, nearly touching, just barely. But they don’t want to risk burning their hands.

Virgil, however isn’t like the others, and goes to wind his fingers tightly teasing their way into the slips of hair, keeping lips pressed together firm. It was a flurry of teeth and tongues, hands digging nearly painful into the flesh of hips and head. Hungrily, just a greedy as a flame, he swallowed whole the sound Roman made in the back of his throat. 

He was throwing caution out the window, now.

It’s dangerous playing with fire like this, dangerous to get this close, to be touching and touching unable to pull away.

(His fingertips begin to blister.)

But it’s turned into something more so. Over the years and months the infatuation turns to admiration turns to interest turns to like- _ like _  turns to love.

Roman tilts his chin, changes the direction of the kiss, flipping it all over again and throwing Virgil for a loop as he will never fail to do so. He says a word, a name, against Virgil’s mouth sounding as more of a moan, a distant hum really. Electricity plays along his skin.

It had started simply enough, a date followed by another, going smoothly enough that Virgil thinks fate must’ve finally forgotten about him along the way, but new that at some point Virgil would come to just as it had. That Roman was achievable in the same ways it was claim a flicker of fire. They raged to much on a path with set eyes only they seem to see.

But Virgil overcame that fact with one more suited for him, thrilling and calmer all at once.

You can house a flame, and that can be so much better.

And especially now as Roman—so gently—bites the lower of his lip. All Virgil wants to do is give,  _ give _ ,  _ give _  because he finds he can’t lose this, he wants to keep this; that without the heat of touches trailing fire he would turn to ice, without the light he brings through beats of smile and laughter the home they’ve made will wither and dull.

And love is awful, Virgil thinks, it  _ can  _ be awful. Because it means you offer yourself to the fullest, give everything up to watch it be stripped away until your left undone and bare, defenseless and exposed for everything you now are.

At this point it can destroy you. Easily. Flames could flicker and dance with an unachievable balance of elegance and strength, catching you staring unabashed and move to take. Continuing to take as much as it wants so you’re ashes falling down, crumbling to hazy knees, forcing yourself to deal as it’s the only thing you can do to get by. Grit your teeth and clench a fist.

Or instead—it doesn’t burn you. It takes your being, already beautiful he insists, and enfluges you in flame. White hot flames that don’t tear you down but open a second chance to be better, and continue to be better. Rebirth; a phoenix rising from ashes and fire.

Roman’s mouth finds his again, pushed against a wall and trapped but freed. Lips against his fervent and scorching, prying them open once more. The air evaporates from his lungs. He slots the two of them together, bodies flush against one another trying to claw at any space that separates them, and meets the embrace halfway.

He can live like this, in a home tied by a hearth. Love seems a little less awful, put out like that.

**_________**

 

He’s learned a lot of things since meeting Roman, some not direct with the actually meeting. He had thought he had moved past it, but ignoring wounds and trying for avoidance doesn’t get easier.

It’s easier, he’s found, to instead move on with your boyfriend’s motorcycle.

**_________**

 

The clock flashes 4:03. Virgil can barely see it past half lidded eyes, blurry from a more awake sort of exhaustion.  

He’s trapped to the lilac sheets and mattress, pinned by a lazy arm tying down his chest and boxed in by a pair of legs smooth shaven. Occasionally, Roman whispers in his sleep, sometimes the whispers more wisps of breath than articulate words. Messily closed blinds draw slanted lines colored of rising sunlight across their bodies, Virgil squints trying to look past the glare of it, idly wondering when it had gotten to be so bright.

Roman should have listened to him when they were decorating, when he was insisting they get thicker curtains, darker blinds.  _ Not everyone is a vampire, Count Drac _ , he had said pulling a box of paper thin, white blinds.

_ Yeah but you bite like one _ , he retorted and Roman gasped for a minute choking on his own flush and shock.

Still Virgil had been right in the end. Too much day for too early a morning.

“Babe, can you turn down the brightness of your skin?” Roman slurs, his tongue weighted by hours exhaustion. Virgil snorts ugly, ducking his head lower to quiet the quivers of his shoulders by pressing his lips into a thin line and his face into the open crook of Roman’s neck. He shifts, more away now anyways so the try to keep quiet was pointless. “V’rge?”

He hums mildly. Roman turns a bit more and presses against him for a kiss. Not really a kiss actually, just the simple brush of lips over lips and falls to the stretch of pale skin uncovered by a too loose t-shirt found in the very back of the closet.

“What are you doing up?” He asks and it’s barely considered words.

Virgil pulls himself up higher. “Nothing. You should go back to sleep.”

Roman grunts, nudging his nose further into the line of flesh, his eyelashes just grazing it. A low pitched whine reverberating from inside his chest, and he huffs when that gets no mind to it.

Instead he tries something else, kissing the side of his mouth, the curve of his strait moving from where it meets the start of his jawline. He moves soft and tired, a quiet hum that ripples through the both of them. Something in Virgil settles, slowly his limbs growing limper with each peppered kissed pressed hot against his burning skin.

“Go back to sleep with me,” mumbles Roman, mouth left open against his collarbone and breath warming the skin. And when Virgil huffs indigent, trying to stir the tired arms and legs stay, stale and resting; Roman pulls him in closer to where his nose buries itself into the mess of caramel bedhead. It smells of coconut conditioner.

**_________**

 

“Fuck,” Virgil cursed and immediately went to bite the insides of his cheeks till it was raw and starting to numb, waiting for the quiet huffs of his roommate Patton to even back out.

Four o’clock in the morning was never a good time to wake anyone up, especially so if that anyone was Patton. (Patton who would drag you to the commons, fix you with hot chocolate or tear —a strict no coffee agenda, make sure no nightmares or energy lingered.)

He rolls back over to look at the picture again—red heart in the corner, small and mocking along with the higher numbers that followed behind it.

Mind tired and useless, his thoughts wander idly to asking of the little white scar that capes the top of his ear. Then he comes to a moment later how stupid that is and shakes his head, as if that fixes how overworked he is, how delirious he gets with so little rest.

But somewhere along the line he had become infatuated, and made it a mission of sorts to find the boy with a charming smile and terrible lines who had bought him a beer to many on a lonely night at a party. At the very least Virgil hoped to return his jacket.

It sat, the only thing actually hung and only worn twice after their meeting. Both of which were absolute emergencies since the maintenance of their dormitories didn’t really care about how cold and would let it be until one of the higher paying students went to voice a very loud and very blunt complaint.

But now he had found him, just not in person. He wasn’t sure if this was any better.

“Fuck me” he says again, neck arcing down, muted by a mouthful of pillow and sheets.

He had gone and screwed up it, haphazardly liking a stupid post of Roman pressed in a button down, mouth curved in a dimpled smirk only slightly.

He jolted when it buzzed next to him.

**[Roman]** : What in Hestia’s name are you doing up?

**_________**

 

“Rule this kingdom with me Virgil!” Roman pokes out his head from inside the slowly collapsing fort built on cement of carpet, and bricks of pillows and blanket.

Virgil doesn’t actually go to grace the offer with a real response. He, instead, kicks the pillow, it giving way to the brunt of the soft force of it. “This thing is going to collapse.”

“Nonsense!”

Virgil raises a clever brow when Roman springs up to his feet, caught in the netting that has his feet stumbling over one another in attempts to free themselves. “You’re so going to fall.”

“Am not,” he protests obsitantly. With one hand he reaches out for Virgil, tripping over air and the crumbling walls of a poorly constructed pillow fort, watching him duck down. There’s a smile hidden and playing on his face.

And then, Roman’s falling backwards, arms spinning windmills trying to catch onto some sort, any kind of semblance of balance. He goes crashing with a proud squawk and the entire of their hard work starts by crumbling inside itself all landing atop his body left limp.

“Well this is a predicament.”

They lie and stand, silent and flat, neither bothering to remove the heavy weight and strangled bindings of scratchy couch pillows and fuzzy throw blankets.

“Hey maybe the fort is just a representation of my ever collapsing mental state,” Virgil comments mildly. Roman snorts (he notes, strangely enough, it’s not the fake one presented to friends outside their apartment, their home. It’s ugly and loud and wonderful, so much so that warmth boils in his chest with an unwanted need to kiss him stupid. To swallow the laughter and giggles, and simply press smiles to smiles.) But wears a twin expression to Logan’s concern twinged with amusement at something not funny in the slightest.

“Not everything is a sign from above, darkest darling.” Roman gives a little kick to his leg, muffled and less effective seeing how a blanket captured a curved hold to his ankle, the rest of it caught under another brown pillow. “Although maybe something is trying to tell us to get good at making castle forts.”  

“Funny.”

Roman strains his neck to meet the lazy gaze. His cheeks alight with a smile only given in love. “For you — mi amor — I do try.”

Virgil swallows a swell of love that knot his lungs for a moment. “Sap.”

Roman hums, the soft retort of  _ oh, but you love it _  going unsaid loudly in the quiet of their home. He’s had to say it enough as is, with all the times of affection and adoration, slipping from langues Virgil is unfamiliar with (Spanish, love).

“Let’s sleep here tonight,” he says, as if Virgil will following without question. He will most of the time. He would follow Roman to almost everywhere.

But not overnight only to gain an awful crink in his neck. He hits him with a fallen pillow lost by his side. “Absolutely not.”  

(Roman lunges for him, dragging him back down with him in an embrace of a loving headlock. He’s laughing, and Virgil chokes on an attempt to swallow his own.)

**_________**

 

**[Virgil]** : I could say the same to you, y are you up at 4:10?

**[Roman]** : well i asked first who-I’m-pretty-sure-is-that-emo-I-met-a-week-ago. Fairs, fair

**[Virgil]** : ok first off how did you know it was me and obviously I was up on Instagram you Princely asshole  

**[Roman]** : Oof, you wound me. I thought we had fun that lovely night. :((

**[Virgil]** : believe what you want. Btw who the hell is hestia??

**[Roman]** : only like one of the best greek gods?? Don’t go ditching her

**[Virgil]** : I actually can’t believe this bs. That your some sort of disney-history nerd in general and you ride a fucking motorcycle

**[Roman]** : IM NO NERD MY CHEMICAL RACOON!

**[Virgil]** : point proven

**[Roman]** : so i have a question

**[Virgil]** : I usually don’t have an answer

**[Roman]** : y are you up at 4 in the morning liking my pictures which I must say I look unfairly pretty in

**[Virgil]** : you really don’t but sure i guess. Also i just wanted to return your stupid jacket

**[Roman]** : oh?

**[Virgil]** : yeah, lets meet at a cafe or store or something so i can give it back to you and have thievery off my conscious

**[Roman]** : are you asking me on a date?

**[Virgil]** : whatever helps you sleep at night princey  

**_________**

 

Sometimes, Virgil feels, that Roman’s not a real person. He basks in pooling sunlight parkside that catches high cheekbones, the curve of his nose, the little white nick of a scar he got when his sister Tegan had tossed a plastic model of a truck, clipping him by the skin of his ear just barely.

(According to him, he had cried and cried and cried, with loud wails and ugly hiccups; but later after he had fallen from a tree planted out front his home, he had walked around fine with a broken arm from the next hour.)

But then Virgil’s reminded again that he is only human and nothing more, as he turns and starts to complain of a nonexistent burn.

“So have we arrived yet?” Virgil asks, heavy and tired. “Or are you going to blindfold me next and push me off a cliff next?” That actually wouldn’t be so bad. The oncoming slaughter Roman calls a hike would be a slower death. The cliff quicker, more efficient.

Roman, unfortunately, doesn’t share the same sentiment. “Oh come on, System of a Downer. I’m not going to commit  _ murder _ . This place is too pretty to be stained with blood. Red and green don’t really go together well.” He pauses. “Well unless it’s Christmas I guess.”

“Ah. So your reason for not tossing your boyfriend who you claim to love so much over the edge is because of an aesthetic thing.” He sniffs dryly. “I see how it is.”   

“Exactly,” Roman smiles. He tugs on his arm gone slack in the warm hold. His blood churns with fire, stomach still flip-flops. “Come on and trust me now.”

“That sounds like an awful idea.”

“It’s be fun,” Roman insists again, for the fourth time in the hour. “We can watch the sunset, carve our names in a tree like some lovesick teenagers, you plot how you’re going to shove  _ me  _ off a cliff while yelling ‘This is Sparta’. It’ll be great. 100%.”

“Oh you know me so well,” Virgil swoons, deadpan.

They take on a smaller trail that’s lined the way with autumn's fallen leaves and twigs that Roman snaps loudly with every annoyingly large step he takes. He thunders through it all, the earth tremulous beneath him, pushed under  _ for _  him. The air cloys with the fall’s humid heat, whispers with cool breezes that flutter by. Still, when they reach the spot (a clearing carpeted by leaves and moss, taken in hold of the twig arms of trees that embrace it in care, miles and miles untouched and ignored by others passing by too quick, too blind) Virgil’s body still lurches at the exhaustion and sweat kept under padded hoodies and flannels.

But still, he wasn’t about to complain a loose a bet made prior. Roman would have to suck it and just give into the darker blinds.

“It’s pretty alright,” Virgil admits (exhaling the silent pant, Roman doesn’t catch it).

He bumps their shoulders. “Same could be said for you.”

“And what about you then?” Virgil asks frown upturning to a smirk.

“Oh me? I’m pretty extraordinary,” Roman says. “Alright just doesn’t cover it for me.”

Plopping to the ground, sitting and waiting for Roman to sit impatient, Virgil tugs at the bodies of dying grass that give into the pull, and come up stuck and prickly on the smooth of his palm. “Okay, so why did you drag me out here?”

“What?” Roman whines, fake and sacchine. “Can’t I just want to spend time with my lovely boyfriend who is so wonderful and great, who loves me oh so much?”

“Ew, disgusting.” Virgil scrunching his nose when looking up at his boyfriend (who he loved very much). “Invalid.”

The fight leaves him with a stubborn huff and his knees crumble to wear he sits next to Virgil on the dirty ground. He’ll be complaining again, this time of ruined jeans and how good they made his butt look. “Fine you caught me. I was staging your murder since you won’t let me be me.”

In return, Virgil bumps his shoulder too. “Which is a complete and utter sap.”

“Seriously though, I know this isn’t really your scene—”

“No,” Virgil drawls in interruption. “Totally doesn’t go with my aesthetic of angst and edge.”

“—so,” Roman presses firmly on, “thanks for coming out. I really did want to spend time with you, y’know. And I know you don’t like big, loud distractions that are super invading and stuff like that. I guess I just thought we both could do with some quiet. At least for about an hour before it starts to get too boring.”

Oh. It’s sweet actually. That Roman does this. It still startles Virgil, the very same how it still sends his stomach swooping and lodges his heart into his throat at simple touches. He’s not sure if he will ever be used to this sort of love, and he’s not sure if that’s such a bad thing. It all feels anew.

He turns to Roman and finds another distraction, better than listening to how the mute forest sings. How his lips stay ever upturned, a restless tapping of his hand that moves to intertwine with Virgil’s that had never stopped, and probably never will stop. The distractions turns to appreciation of what’s given because Roman has a scent of coconut and burning wood he’s claimed as his, the smell only associated with him. Screw holidays and vacation memories. There’s a fire that dances in his eyes, spreads through his body and warms everyone around. It puppets his arms and legs breaking him forth in a brilliant blaze, smiling, that never ceases to amaze.

And Virgil thinks,  _ I’m home _ .

The sky is fading to a more honey-like glow, drips of blue ebb down and flashes of brighter yellows fight back. Soon they’ll cancel one another out.

It’s later than he thought. How long have they been sitting here, able to stand in the silence and still of a place dying to be born again as winter?

Virgil blinks himself from standing too long in dumb stupor.

“Y’know this isn’t so awful actually,” Virgil hums and Roman grins pressing himself up along Virgil’s side, slotting next to him near perfect and planting a annoying, sloppy kiss to his cheek, more of a wide smile of teeth than lips really.

He knows Roman takes it as him talking of the evening, when he preens in the statement, almost bursting. It isn’t, but he finds that better. He’s figured it out himself, and it’s good. What he has caught in the palms of broken hands and held on desperately, gently, warmed him. Fixed him. Him and Roman. Together.

(“You love me, right?”

“Oh, darling.” Roman grinned wide with all teeth. “You have no idea.”)

Ducking, he laughs and runs with Roman in toll of him. He’s not running away; if he was he would have let go of Roman’s hand much sooner.

_ Together _  they leave behind a messily carved heart in the softer bark with initials V and R cut into the middle.

**Author's Note:**

> watch out i wrote this dead tired at 12 in the morning and was in need of some fluff. so sorry if it doesn't make much sense.


End file.
